Google finds pages by following links, and it does not fill in search forms. Give every listing its own address, link to it from browsable category pages, list it in an XML sitemap, then check Webmaster Tools.

Hundreds of listings, a handful in Google

A used car lot, a property manager or an equipment rental yard keeps hundreds of listings on its website, each with photographs and a price.

The owner searches Google for a model in stock, and nothing comes up. A search for the site itself turns up the home page, the contact page and little else.

Visitors find the listings easily, through the search form on the home page. That form is the only way in, and it is why Google sees so little.

The fix is rarely a new design. It is a set of plain paths to every listing that a search engine can follow.

Google follows links and skips forms

Googlebot, the program Google uses to read websites, finds pages by following links from pages it already knows.

A search form works another way. Its results exist only after someone picks a make, a price range or a size and presses the button. Googlebot cannot be counted on to sit at forms making choices.

When the only route to a listing runs through the form, nothing on the site links to it. As far as Google can tell, the listing is not there.

Where listings usually hide

The first is the usual cause, and the others tend to travel with it. Each one turns a listing a shopper can see into a page Google cannot reach or cannot keep.

Category pages a person can browse

Start with pages that sort stock the way people think about it: by make and model for vehicles, by building or area for rentals, by kind of machine for equipment.

Each category page shows every listing in it as an ordinary link, with a photograph, a price and a line of detail. Long categories split into numbered pages joined by plain next and previous links.

These pages serve visitors too: someone wanting every excavator in the yard can browse instead of guessing at search settings.

Every listing at its own address

Each listing needs one permanent address that opens the same listing for anyone, at any time. Copy it, paste it into a different browser, and it should still work.

Build each listing's page title from its details: year, make, model, town. People search with those words, and Google shows the title as the headline of the result.

Decide in advance what happens when an item sells. A page that says so, with links to similar listings, serves a visitor better than an error message.

An XML sitemap fills in the list

An XML sitemap is a file listing every address you want Google to know about. On an inventory site, build it from the same database as the listings, so it changes when the stock does.

Submit it in Google Webmaster Tools. Google then checks the addresses in it alongside the pages it finds by following links.

A sitemap supplements links rather than replacing them. It tells Google a page exists; links show where that page sits among the others.

A worked example

A steel supplier in the Kootenays sells structural shapes, bar, tube and plate to fabricators, contractors and farms from a warehouse with a small cutting shop.

Its website had a product finder: pick a shape, a grade and a size, and a table of stock appeared. Google held about six pages of the site.

Fabricators searching for a particular size of channel or flat bar found other suppliers instead. The finder's results carried a session number in their addresses, and no page linked to a single item.

The supplier added a page for each shape, listing every size and grade as a link. Each size got its own page, and a sitemap is rebuilt nightly from the stock list.

The finder stayed for customers who like it. Google can now walk from the home page to a shape and on to every size, as a browsing buyer would.

Checking what Google has found

Enter site: followed directly by your domain name in Google's search box for a rough count of the pages it holds. Then search for one listing's exact title.

In Webmaster Tools, Index Status charts the total of indexed pages over the past year. The Sitemaps report compares the addresses you submitted with how many are indexed.

Fetch as Google, in the same tools, shows what Googlebot receives when it asks for a single listing's address.

Allow several weeks before reading much into the figures; Google reads a large site in stages.

Keeping the paths current

Stock on an inventory site changes every week. Links typed into pages by hand go stale the first time something sells.

Category pages, listing pages and the sitemap should all be generated from the database behind the search form. Add a listing once, and it appears in all three.

That is a job for whoever built the inventory system, and far smaller than a new site.

The counter-case

A property manager with a dozen suites that rent within days may see listings gone before Google ever reaches them. A page that lives for a week does little in search.

For that business, the pages worth Google's attention are the stable ones: each building, its area and how to apply.

A business holding hundreds of items for weeks at a time is different. Its listings are exactly what people search for, and they need a route that does not depend on a form.

Opening a path to every listing

  1. Check the site: count for your domain in Google.
  2. Paste a listing's address into a different browser.
  3. Find every route to a listing that skips the form.
  4. Build category pages that link to every item.
  5. Generate a sitemap from the inventory database.
  6. Submit the sitemap in Webmaster Tools.
  7. Compare submitted and indexed counts each month.

Step four builds the path. Category pages lay a trail of ordinary links from the home page to every listing, for Google and for visitors who would rather browse.

Giving each item a page of its own, with a title that matches what people search for, is the same idea behind a volunteer page people in town can find.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Google show so few of our listings?

Because the listings appear only after a visitor uses the search form. Google finds pages by following links, and nothing on the site links to those listings.

Can Googlebot fill in a search form?

It does not pick options and press search the way a shopper does. Treat any page reached only through a form as a page Google will not find.

Is an XML sitemap enough on its own?

No. A sitemap tells Google that addresses exist, while links show how pages relate. Use both: category pages linking to every listing, and a sitemap built from the database.

How can we see how many pages Google has indexed?

A site: search on your own domain gives a rough count. The Index Status and Sitemaps reports in Webmaster Tools give a steadier view over time.

What should happen when a listing sells?

Keep the page for a while, say plainly that the item has sold, and link to similar listings. A visitor arriving from a search then finds something useful.

Do we have to remove the search form?

No. Keep it for visitors who like it. Add browsable category pages and permanent listing addresses beside it, so the form is no longer the only way in.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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